


if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended

by starsandspears



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I’m so sorry, Minor Violence, au where Bianca doesn’t reincarnate, not described in detail but there’s some blood yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 05:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16886562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandspears/pseuds/starsandspears
Summary: A fight gone wrong, a dying boy. A shred of comfort before he goes.





	if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended

**Author's Note:**

> my friend asked for some hurt/comfort but she’s getting this shit instead

Nico is dying.

At least, he’s pretty sure he is. He’s laying on the ground wheezing for breath, hand clamped over his left side in an attempt to stop the blood. But there’s just so, so much. It gushes through his fingers, spreading around him in a pool.

It was a battle gone wrong. He’d thought he was strong enough to take the monster down on his own, but, well. _That_ hadn’t gone so well. Bitterly, he curses his own hubris for not thinking to take someone with him. _They might never find your body,_ his mind whispers. Nico chokes back a sob.

Percy, Annabeth, Will. All the campers he’s befriended throughout his time at Camp Half-Blood. Nico had finally found a home and now he was losing it.

He only wishes he could say goodbye.

—

Some say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, and Nico waits patiently for all his sorrow to play out before him. But it never comes. “This is bullshit,” he mutters raspingly to himself. “I don’t even get a montage of all my stupid mistakes?”

“Would you really like that?” The voice that comes sounds faintly amused, and he jolts, then immediately winces from the pain. The sound is coming from his left, and Nico turns his head stiffly.

A choked noise comes from his throat, because what he’s seeing can’t be real.

Bianca di Angelo lays besides him, smiling gently. Her eyes crinkle at the corners and she looks so very young. Nico is in his twenties, now, but was it that long ago that he lost his sister? Her eyes still hold that sharp cleverness, the need for survival there even after her death.

“ _Sorella_.” The word is breathed out as tears start streaming down his face. She can’t be here, he must have started hallucinating. But that doesn’t stop him from reaching for her anyways, left hand moving from his bloody side shakily. She brings up an arm to meet him, fingertips brushing through his hand. Where they go through feels cold, and Nico shivers.

His sister moves her hand to brush uselessly through the tears at his eyes. “ _Fratellino_ ,” she says softly, voice still sweet like honey, “I’m so proud of you.”

Nico sobs. His body wracks with the pain of it as his shoulders shake, hands curled into fists and nails biting into his palms. He can’t bear her kind words, her sympathetic stare. All of it brings the pain of losing her rushing back at once and it feels as raw as the day she died. Bianca hushes him, soothes him slowly. She still has things to say.

“Listen to me,” she tells him, and he does. Because he’s her little brother and she’s the _oldest, Nicolo, don’t you forget it!_ He listens, breathing starting to slow.

Bianca murmurs, “You’ve come so far,” and there’s a wistfulness in it. she strokes his cheek as best she can. “You have done so much, made me so proud—made mama proud, to, and even our father.”

“But my friends, the—the campers, and everyone else.” It’s a croak, a plea for reassurance. And she gives it to him.

“They will be alright eventually,” she says. “I will make sure they find you. They will grieve, but your death will only push them on.”

It’s what he needs to hear. Nico’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, but he struggles to keep them open. He wants the last thing he sees to be her, to be his sister.

“We’re going to be a _familia_ again,” Bianca whispers. “We’ll have each other back.” Her green eyes are bright even as they glisten with tears.

Nico smiles at her, for one last second, and she sees the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy in it. Then his eyes glass over, last breath rushes out.

Bianca weeps for him, even though she’ll see him soon.

She cries not for his current death, no. But finally, finally she cries for the loss of a brother she had to leave behind so long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> whoops  
> (tell me if u like it and want more, or if you have amy other prompts! come talk to me on tumblr before it goes @ battered-and-bruised-heart


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